Rachel's Road to Atlanta! Day 10!
Yesterday we started testing a new version of Jafar against SteelSong because version 2.1 was just not performing.
CHANGES
- Captain Hook x3
- Friends On The Other Side x4
- Rise Of The Titans x1
+ Fire The Cannons! x2
+ Ba-Boom! x2
+ Cinderella Stout Hearted x1
+ Let The Storm Rage On x3
We took out the Hooks and added in early game removal as character based removal wasn’t able to answer SteelSongs early tempo plays. It worked well and made the match feel win-able and, if played well, win-able more than half the time.
As with any tweaks/changes though, you don’t want to assume that the changes you made wont effect the other matches you already tested against. It’s easy to make assumptions/guesses, but you want to retest and make sure you didn’t just ruin a good thing with the other matches. It’s always a toss up. Josh has often referred to the top decks of a well designed TCG as a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. You never want one deck to be the only one performing, that’s where bans come in.
So, if deck design is a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, you want to bring the rock to a room full of scissors. The metaphor is a good one, but of course its not a perfect metaphor. A good draw, a better pilot, or sometimes even who goes first/who establishes themselves first can make a bad match up win-able. So, if you have an almost guaranteed win against a deck, and make adjustments to have a better chance against a different deck that you can’t win against, you want to make sure you know how these changes effect the other matches.
Okay, so on to the testing against Big Bounce, a matchup that was favourable before our changes! When we started this round, Josh guessed that the early removal might be great to take out some of the early bounce-able targets. This was the same strategy we had decided to use against Singers as breaking their tempo was a key element of winning that matchup.
Thoughts
To start, I have to play slower… I will say this again, I have to remember my triggers. I really have to get into that annoying habit of saying:
“Ready, Set, Draw?” and also saying Trigger after EVERY SINGLE PLAY! I just get so excited and then play too fast…
Anyways, here’s the results:
Match 1: I won both games! The first game was won with a double Queen’s Castle after a Be Prepared. I genuinely like how versatile this deck is. The first draft was really just all in for Jafar, and that’s the wrong deck design. The Castles reinforce the fact that the deck has a couple of ways to win, and having something that survives a Be Prepared is good.
Match 2: I won both games here too. The first game was very much the same as above, two castles after a Be Prepared is great! I’m realizing that Cinderella Stouthearted is great here too, but she does die to a Be Prepared like everything else, so making sure that there is a way to come back from that is key.
Match 3: Another sweep for me! The first game was not very fun though as it felt like Josh bricked, and he confirmed that he just drew a bunch of high costed, un-inkable cards. By the second game here I was getting confident and my go-to aggressive game strategy started to come out. I had two Jafars in my hand, and A Whole New World. I had a good board state, but I assumed Josh could play Be Prepared. So, I played a Jafar, smiled, said if I had A Whole New World I won, and then told him to sweep the field. He did, and I played the second Jafar, hoping he did not have the second board wipe.
He did not and I won.
Match 4: The tables turned here. Josh took both games. The first one was close and I was a turn away from winning but he got there. The second game just went too late. I was stuck with a bunch of high costed cards and was only able to play one per turn, which meant he was able to take them out with effects like Lady Termaine or Madame Medusa. The lesson is this deck needs to win before we get here. Going late game against Big Bounce put’s me at a disadvantage as they can chain removal effects with their bounce cards to lock me out of the late game.
This match I really tried what we set out to do though and kept/mulliganed for a lot of early game removal. Though the idea was good, the practice was not. The first turn removal was fine, but after that I have to establish my board instead of just sitting back and blowing up his cards like I did against Singers. I need card advantage and a way to rebound from a Be Prepared rather than aggressively trying to remove my opponents early plays. You lean on Blue Fairy hard in this matchup and against singers Blue Fairy is more often then not just inked. Also not playing an early little Robin Hood unless I can shift into it T3 and just use it for Ink or a Tremaine buffer instead.
Match 5: Last one went 1-1. Josh took the first one for much of the same reasons as above. Game went late and I just could not recover after the second Be Prepared or the many, many pieces of removal. The last game I won. I switched tactics again and tried ignoring him and establishing my board with multiple value pieces . I won this game on the Jafar combo, which was a nice finisher!
So, ending thoughts, Bounce is still a good match for Jafar, but I can’t stall too much by taking out his early targets. A Blue Fairy is better than a Ba-Boom!, and Cindy is a keeper always!!
Match Results: I won 7/10 games, which, based on the Bo2 game rules, would put me at 10 points.
We are streaming these testing games on Twitch when we do them, and I’m sure they will go on YouTube if you are interested in checking them out! They are less tournament style, and more lets go through all the thought process and possibilities and figure out how to play the decks the best. I’m finding it very helpful talking through everything, and if you’re interested in learning how to be a better deck pilot there might be some helpful tips in these videos for you too!
Anyways, that’s it for now!